Rooftop Tents, a Teardrop and a Tiny Kitchen: A Different Way to Camp

One of the questions we hear most about camping with five kids: “Where does everyone sleep?”

When we started planning, we looked at almost every option. Large American RVs offered plenty of space but felt too closed off from the outdoors. Traditional tents offered the adventure, but setting up and packing up every day would be a huge drag.

Eventually, we realized we were not looking for the biggest camper we could tow. We were looking for a small setup that expanded into what we needed.

Before we had children, while living in Botswana, we travelled with a Howling Moon Stargazer rooftop tent. It spent more than thirteen years in storage before we finally unpacked it in Texas and mounted it on top of the Suburban. The tent opens at the front, back, sides and roof, allowing air to move through on warm nights and giving the children the feeling of sleeping in a travelling treehouse.

One rooftop tent was great for a couple with no kids, but now with five little rascals it is not nearly enough, so we added a compact Hero teardrop trailer with ANOTHER rooftop tent. Its Danish design follows a Scandinavian approach to outdoor living: simple, functional and intended to keep you outside. We have a queen bed inside, a Galileo pop-up rooftop tent with a full XL mattress on the roof, and the rear hatch opens into an outdoor kitchen with a propane cooktop. Together, the camper and two rooftop tents give us three sleeping areas that set up in less than 10 minutes.

From the outside, that is not immediately obvious. At an early Cracker Barrel stop, several people turned to look at the little Hero, including someone who commented, “Wow, that is so small.” They had no idea that two more beds were hiding in plain sight on top of the trailer and Suburban—or that seven people would be sleeping there.

Once everything is open, however, our small campsite becomes home. The children climb into their ‘treehouses’ to read or explore while we prepare dinner. In North Carolina, they built fairy houses amongst the tall pine trees from locally sourced pinecones, moss and sticks. In West Virginia it was cartwheels, batting practice with ‘weighted baseballs’ and making the playground a castle.

Dirt gets everywhere, the children climb ladders in the dark and Poky is still deciding which nighttime noises require barking. But the setup keeps us outside: cooking, exploring, and listening to the woods before bed.

That was the point. We did not want to bring a house into the forest. We wanted just enough of a home to carry us to the next stop.